partesvsprêtésTell them apart

Quick tell: partes is a verb, prêtés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“partes” is a verb and “prêtés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,195
“partes” frequency rank
#30,756
“prêtés” frequency rank
65951
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature partes prêtés
Definition De partir. Masculin pluriel de prêté.

Where the eye mixes partes and prêtés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. partes (CVCCVC) and prêtés (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
partes
6 ch
prêtés

Look-alike desk: partes vs prêtés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: partes is \paʁt\ while prêtés is \pʁɛ.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65951, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

partes is recorded at frequency rank #35,195, classified as averb, pronounced \paʁt\. prêtés is at rank #30,756, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁɛ.te\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 65951, this pair ranks #70,020 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of partes vs prêtés

Shared letters: prst. Private to "partes": ae. Private to "prêtés": éê.

"partes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "prêtés" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • partes ← aprtes · parets · parrtes · partess · partse · parttes · patres · ppartes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "partes" and "prêtés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "partes" is a verb and "prêtés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "partes" or "prêtés" show up more?
"prêtés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,756 in our French list, against #35,195 for "partes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "partes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prêtés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,020 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "partes" and "prêtés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "partes vs pètes". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #70,020 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list